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shortcomings can only have been magnified by the scale of the altarpiece for the Gesù: eight metres high and nearly five across.56 The picture was in its allotted place by Passiontide 1603, but kept under wraps until Easter Sunday itself, the day of the Resurrection. It seems never to have been much loved. Caravaggio and his friends set the tone for its reception by poking fun at it from the moment it was unveiled. There would be no protests when it was quietly removed from the church towards the end of the seventeenth century, following alterations to the transept altars.

Caravaggio observed (and probably helped to orchestrate) the picture’s unfavourable reception with rancorous pleasure. He was already annoyed that Baglione had been given such a prestigious assignment – and all the more irritated because he suspected that Baglione had won the job through the ruse of offering his satire, the Divine Love, to Benedetto Giustiniani. Cardinal Giustiniani was a Jesuit and had probably intervened with the general of the order, Claudio Acquaviva, to obtain the commission for Baglione. So when his rival produced his monumental flop, Caravaggio decided that it was the moment to take his revenge. What better time to kick a man than when he is down?

Shortly after Easter Sunday 1603 a couple of newly composed satirical poems caused something of a sensation in the artists’ quarter of Rome. Copies were passed round. Impromptu recitals were held. The verses were aimed at ‘Gioan Bagaglia’ or ‘Gian Coglione’, ‘John Baggage’ or ‘Johnny Testicle’. They were not the most ingenious nicknames for Giovanni Baglione, but they were effective. One of the poems also included a swipe at ‘Mao’, the alias of Tommaso Salini, who was a minor still life painter and Baglione’s closest associate.

The first poem is crude and makeshift, a mock-sonnet with all the subtlety of a punch in the face:

Gioan Bagaglia tu no[n] sai un ah

le tue pitture sono pituresse

volo vedere con esse

ch[e] non guadagnarai

mai una patacca

Ch[e] di cotanto panno

da farti un paro di bragesse

ch[e] ad ognun mostrarai

quel ch[e] fa la cacca

portela adunque

i tuoi disegni e cartoni

ch[e] tu ai fatto a Andrea pizzicarolo

o veramente forbete ne il culo

o alla moglie di Mao turegli la potta

ch[e] libelli con quel suo cazzon da mulo più non la fotte

perdonami dipintore se io non ti adulo

ch[e] della collana ch[e] tu porti indegno sei

et della pittura vituperio.57

John Baggage you don’t even know

That your pictures are mere woman’s-work

I want to see

That you won’t even earn a counterfeit penny from them

Because with as much canvas

As it would take to make yourself a pair of breeches

You can show everyone

What shit truly is

Therefore take

Your drawings and cartoons

That you have made, to Andrea the grocer’s shop

[so he can wrap fruit and veg in them]

Or wipe your arse with them

Or stuff them up the cunt of Mao’s wife

Because he isn’t fucking her anymore with his donkey cock

Pray pardon me, painter, if I do not worship you

Because you don’t merit that chain you wear round your neck

And your painting deserves only vituperation.

Benedetto Giustiniani’s award of a gold chain to Baglione evidently still rankled. Rubens, Van Dyck and Rembrandt would all paint themselves wearing chains of gold, symbols of accomplishment and courtly patronage. It was a mark of intellectual distinction, a sign of honour, but it had been conferred on Baglione for painting a picture that explicitly dishonoured Caravaggio.

The second poem was rather more carefully constructed, in regular hendecasyllabic lines. Its attacks on Baglione were slightly less sexually graphic, at least until the last line:

Gian Coglione senza dubio dir si puole

quel ch[e] biasimar si mette altrui

ch[e] può cento anni esser mastro di lui.

Nella pittura intendo la mia prole

poi ch[e] pittor si vol chiamar colui

Ch[e] no[n] può star p[er]